We have been discussing how faculty around the country are supporting the abandonment of free speech principles to bar speakers and speech with which they disagree. The most extreme form of this rejection of classical liberal values is the antifa movement. We have seen faculty physically attack speakers or destroy messages that they oppose. We have also seen faculty physically attacked and intimidated. In some of these incidents, other faculty have supported students in shutting down speakers or fellow academics (here and here). The latest example of faculty opposing free speech is a letter of over 200 University of California, Berkeley professors and faculty are calling for the shutdown of classes and activities during “free speech week.” To the dismay of these professors, free speech week will include speakers with whom they disagree. Thus, they have posted a letter that not only seeks a boycott of free speech but have proclaimed that certain speech (in this case speech they do not like) is unworthy of free speech protection. Note the faculty and Ph.D students are calling for a boycott of classes and all campus activities, not just the speeches themselves. Turning off the lights and fleeing the campus at the approach of opposing views hardly fits with the school’s motto of “Fiat Lux” (Let There Be Light).
Fortunately, the letter below does not include any law professors.
The letter captures the growing academic movement to curtail free speech on campus, supporting ever expanding notions of microaggressions and prohibited speech. The letter contains the common references to conservative speakers as threatening the physical and mental well-being of faculty, students, and staff.
“We recognize that as a public institution, we are legally bound by the Constitution to allow all viewpoints on campus. However, there are forms of speech that are not protected under the First Amendment. These include speech that presents imminent physical danger and speech that disrupts the university’s mission to educate.”
What speech causes imminent physical danger? The violence at Berkeley has been largely the result of counter-protesters fueled by faculty like this who legitimize anti-speech activities. Putting that aside, these professors would adopt a rule allowing the denial of speech that they deem “disruptive.” That passes for principle among these faculty members.
The boycott contains the same reference to speech harming students by expressing thoughts with which they disagree:
“As faculty we cannot ask students and staff to choose between risking their physical and mental safety in order to attend class or come to work in an environment of harassment, intimidation, violence, and militarized policing.”
The faculty members blame the university for allowing the free expression of opposing views:
If the administration insists upon allowing the Alt-Right to occupy the center of our campus for four days to harass, threaten and intimidate us, as they did during Milo’s visit in February, then faculty cannot teach, staff cannot work and students cannot learn
That line is particularly revealing. As I previously discussed, the “anti-fascists” on our campuses seem strangely fascistic in their views in demanding the silencing of opposing views. Here the mere fact that conservatives are speaking on campus is deemed a form of harassment, threats, and intimidation. The telling inclusion of this language highlights the danger of microaggression and speech prohibitions which often use the same subjective and ill-defined terms. Seminars and handouts on campus proscribe such microaggressions as saying “There is only one race, the human race,” “America is the land of opportunity,” or asking “why are you so quiet?” Berkeley also defines hate speech as “any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display that may incite violence or prejudicial action against someone based on actual or perceived race, color, ancestry, gender, gender identity, ethnicity …” As for expression of bias to be reported, this can include any “general communication not directed toward a particular individual, which disparages a group of people on the basis of some characteristic ….”
This letter however reveals how anti-free speech views have become mainstream with faculty who want universities to bar speech (particularly conservative speech) as threatening to the university as a whole. What is embarrassing is the low-grade logic of these letters. There is little effort to go beyond the premise of how some-speech-makes-us-ill rationale. The scope of permitted scope simply becomes a majoritarian decision. At the same time, these professor are telling students that they legitimately fail mentally and physically threatened by being exposed to opposing views. If our students are becoming “snowflakes,” the below are the snow makers.
Here is the letter: Berkeley Letter
BOYCOTT THE ALT-RIGHT @UCBerkeley
September 24-27th
A letter from UCB Faculty to the Campus and Berkeley Community
To sign the letter, click here.
While there has still not been an official announcement from campus administrators, we are learning that from September 24th to 27th, the University of California at Berkeley will provide a platform to Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, Stephen K. Bannon, Breitbart media and their far right audience. A series of explicitly violent Alt-Right, militia and pro-Fascist events are also, again, being scheduled for Civic Center / MLK park in downtown Berkeley on those days.
Once more, signs point towards an escalated and uncontrollable confrontation both on and off campus during these four days. The history of these events has been chilling. Since Inauguration Day, Alt-Right followers have shot someone at the University of Washington, stabbed two people to death on public transport in Portland, stabbed to death a college senior in Maryland, beaten numerous nonviolent protesters at the University of Virginia, and most recently murdered a peaceful protester with an automobile in Charlottesville. Most immediately troubling, given Trump’s decision to end DACA, is that these forces have publicly expressed their intent to specifically target “sanctuary campuses” and disclose the identity of undocumented students. As concerned faculty members, we cannot remain silent while students, staff, colleagues, and fellow community members are threatened.
Therefore, as faculty committed to the safety of our students and our campus, we are calling for a complete boycott of all classes and campus activities while these Alt-Right events are taking place at the very center of UC Berkeley’s campus. As faculty we cannot ask students and staff to choose between risking their physical and mental safety in order to attend class or come to work in an environment of harassment, intimidation, violence, and militarized policing. The reality is that particularly vulnerable populations (DACA students, non-white, gender queer, Muslims, disabled, feminists, and others) have already been harmed, and are reporting increased levels of fear and anxiety about the upcoming events, the increased police presence on our campus, and how all this will impact their lives and their studies.
It is not just physical violence that our campus faces from this media circus. Many of these provocateurs’ most committed audiences are online, and the Breitbart media machine uses that audience to harass, cyberbully, and threaten anyone who speaks out against them. Students and faculty on our campus have already had their lives threatened for speaking out against Milo and his followers. Online threats are real threats, and if we allow this intolerant and bullying version of free speech to take over our campus, then it can only but come at the expense of the free speech rights of the Berkeley community as a whole. In fact, campus safety concerns have already forced the Anthropology Department to cancel a public talk during “free speech week.” This makes clear that the administration understands the imminent threat to campus safety while also revealing that the loud demands of the Alt-Right has the effect of silencing members of our campus community.
We recognize that as a public institution, we are legally bound by the Constitution to allow all viewpoints on campus. However, there are forms of speech that are not protected under the First Amendment. These include speech that presents imminent physical danger and speech that disrupts the university’s mission to educate. Milo, Coulter and Bannon do not come to educate; they and their followers come to humiliate and incite. If the administration insists upon allowing the Alt-Right to occupy the center of our campus for four days to harass, threaten and intimidate us, as they did during Milo’s visit in February, then faculty cannot teach, staff cannot work and students cannot learn.
We refuse to grant the Alt-Right the media spectacle that they so desperately desire. This strategy responds to the concerns voiced in the letter authored by the chairs of the three departments most impacted–Gender & Women’s Studies, African American Studies and Ethnic Studies – and also follows the lead of the SPLC advice to ignore these agitators. As faculty, we reject both the administration’s rhetoric of false equivalency that all speech – including “hate speech” – merits value and respect and also the impulse to see direct confrontation as the only strategy of resistance. A boycott of all campus activities during these days is the only responsible course of action.
Therefore we are calling upon faculty to take the following steps:
- Cancel classes and tell students to stay home. A boycott of classes affirms that our fundamental responsibility as faculty is to protect the safety and well being of all our students. While we understand the argument that canceling classes might be seen as a penalty to students who want to learn–by holding class when some students CAN NOT attend by virtue of their DACA status and the imminent threat that these campus events hold, faculty who DO hold classes are disadvantaging DACA students and others who will feel threatened by being on campus.
- Close buildings, close departments and let staff stay home. If the campus is unsafe for student learning then it is unsafe for staff members to work. We should work with campus maintenance and building managers to close as many departments and buildings as possible, starting with those in the immediate vicinity of Sproul Plaza. No one should be forced to work surrounded by men with clubs, police with guns and the sting of teargas.
- Faculty who decide to hold class during this week, in the face of these explicit threats, should not penalize students who are afraid to come to campus. It is unfair and discriminatory for faculty to schedule exams or require attendance during this week. Such an expectation forces students to choose between their physical safety, their mental well being, and a grade. Consider making a video lecture available, give the students a take-home assignment, or creating another alternative class plan. If you decide you must hold class, please do it away from campus, away from the Telegraph Avenue point of campus entry, and away from Downtown.
The Administration, in failing to halt these events, has left concerned faculty with no other choice than to act to prevent further harm to our community. We urge you to join us in keeping our students and our campus safe by signing on to this call for a campus-wide- boycott.
In Solidarity,
To add your name to this letter, follow this link and sign at the bottom.
Signed:
Michael Mark Cohen
Associate Teaching Professor, American Studies and African American Studies
Leigh Raiford,
Associate Professor, African American Studies
Juana María Rodríguez
Professor, Ethnic Studies
Charis Thompson
Chancellor’s Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies and Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society
Leslie Salzinger
Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies
Jeffrey Skoller
Associate Professor, Film and Media
Natalia Brizuela
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese and Film and Media
Julia Bryan-Wilson
Professor, History of Art
Allan Desouza
Associate Professor & Chair, Art Practice
Ramona Naddaff
Associate Professor, Rhetoric
Peter Glazer
Associate Professor, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Mary Ann Doane
Class of 1937 Professor of Film & Media
Anne Walsh
Associate Professor, Art Practice
Jake Kosek
Associate Professor, Geography
Stephanie Syjuco
Assistant Professor, Art Practice
Mel Y. Chen
Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies
Cori Hayden
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Gregory Levine
Professor, Art and Architecture of Japan and Buddhist Visual Cultures
James Vernon
Professor, Department of History
Samera Esmeir
Associate Professor, Rhetoric
Victoria E. Robinson
Lecturer, Ethnic Studies
john a. Powell
Director, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society
Paola Bacchetta
Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
Minoo Moallem
Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
Déborah Blocker
Associate Professor, Department of French
Carlos Muñoz, Jr.
Edward A. Dickson Distinguished Emeriti Professor, Ethnic Studies
Patricia Penn Hilden
Professor Emerita, Ethnic Studies
Chris Zepeda-Millan
Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies
Mark Goble
Associate Professor, English
Keith P. Feldman
Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies
Nadia Ellis
Associate Professor, English
Nikki Jones
Associate Professor, African American Studies
Susan Schweik,
Professor, English
Geoffrey G. O’Brien
Associate Professor, English
Richard B. Norgaard
Professor Emeritus, Energy and Resources Group
Rachel Morello-Frosch
Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management & School of Public Health
Emily O’Rourke
Rhetoric, GSI
Beezer de Martelly
PhD Candidate, Music/Ethnomusicology
Laleh Behbehanian
Lecturer, Dept. Of Sociology
Suzanne Guerlac
Professor, French Department
Ivonne del Valle
Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Simon Rogghe
GSI, French Department
Joni Spigler
ABD, History of Art Dept
Soraya Tlatli
Associate Professor, French
Eric Peterson
PhD Student, Dept. of Architecture
Akua Ofori
Postdoctoral Scholar
Ayse Agis
Continuing Lecturer, Gender and Women’s Studies
Maria Faini
CRG Specialist/PhD Candidate: Ethnic Studies/Critical Theory
Scott Hewicker
Lecturer, First Year Program
Caroline Lemak Brickman
PhD candidate, Slavic Dept.
Sima Belmar
Lecturer, TDPS
Bryan Wagner
Associate Professor, English
Ian Duncan,
Professor of English
Joshua Anderson
GSI, English
Todd P. Olson
Professor, History of Art
Donna Honarpisheh
Comparative Literature
Anne-Lise Francois
Associate Professor, Comparative Literature & English
Manuel Rosaldo
PhD Candidate, Sociology
Jovan Lewis
Assistant Professor, Geography and African-American Studies
Alex Bush
PhD Candidate, Film & Media
Seth Holmes
Public Health and Medical Anthropology
Maya Kronfeld
PhD Candidate Comparative Literature
Johnathan Vaknin
PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature
Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Kathryn Levine
Ph.D. Candidate, French
Hallie Wells
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
Daniel Benjamin
GSI, English
Ernest Artiz
GSI, Department of English
Christian Nagler
PhD Candidate, Theater, Dance & Performance Studies
Zachary Levenson
Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology
Abigail De Kosnik
Associate Professor, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Lida Zeitlin Wu
PhD candidate, Film & Media
Elias Lawliet
PhD student, Jurisprudence and Social Policy
John Mundell
PhD student, African American & African Diaspora Studies
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguised Professor of Arts and Humanities, History of Art
Peter Teichner
Professor of Mathematics
Pedro Rolon
GSI/ Ph.D. student, Comparative Literature
Alex Brostoff
GSI and PhD student, Comparative Literature
Alex Brostoff
GSI and PhD student, Comparative Literature
Melina Packer
PhD Candidate, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Maria Tonione
PhD candidate
Diana Ruiz
PhD student/GSI, Film & Media
Xiao Yun Chang
MS Transportation Engineering / Master of City Planning. CEE / DCRP
Alex Thomas
ESPM
Christy Getz
Cooperative Extension Specialist, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Stefannia Mambelli
Integrative Biology
Margaret Jones
Ph.D. Candidate/Music
Kavleen Singh
Political Science
Lauren Kroiz
Associate Professor, History of Art
Juliet Rose Kunkel
PhD student, School of Education
Kristen Sun
GSI, Ethnic Studies
Paul De Morais
PhD candidate, Comparative Literature
Andrew Pastor
Lab Manager, School of Public Health
Tess Peppers
EWMBA Student, Haas School of Business
Patrick Baur
Postdoctoral Fellow, ESPM
Xavier Perrone
Programs Manager – Center for Latino Policy Research
Andrew Sharo
PhD Candidate, Biophysics
Patrick Harrison
PhD Student, Film & Media
Omar Gutiérrez del Arroyo
PhD Candidate, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Julie Pyatt
PhD in Environmental Sci, Pol. & Mngmt.
Christina Azahar
Ph.D. Candidate/GSI, Music
Jacob Wolbert
Graduate Student, Music––––
Giancarlo Cornejo
PhD Candidate/Rhetoric
Sarah Cowan
PhD Candidate, History of Art
Lou Silhol-Macher
PhD Student, German
Harry Burson
PhD student/GSI, Film & Media
Rebecca Feinberg
PhD candidate, Anthropology
Jacob Raterman
Graduate Student/GSI, French Department
Katrin Wehrheim
Associate Professor, Mathematics
Adam Bazari
UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program
Mary Mussman
GSI and PhD Student, Comparative Literature
Kumars Salehi
PhD candidate/German
Lisa Jacobson
PhD Candidate and GSI, Film & Media
Whitney Mgbara
Phd candidate – Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Debarati Sanyal
Professor, Department of French
Michael Song
PhD Student, Integrative Biology
Janet Torres
PhD student, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
Kelly Daniela Norris
PhD student/GSI, Film & Media
Jocelyn Saidenberg
PhD candidate, Comparative Literature
Ariel Wind
GSI and PhD Candidate, Spanish and Portuguese
Alina Predescu
PhD Candidate, Film & Media
Omi Salas-SantaCruz
PhD Student/GSI/ School of Education
Adam Jadhav
PhD student, instructor, Geography
Caitlin Scholl
GSI, Comparative Literature
People who attend university for the most part are young adults. If these young adults are so ill equipped to handle opposing views I can only ponder two contributing factors.
1. The universities screening process is lacking. The university can admit any one they want but that admission should only be given provided the enrollee is well adjusted and emotionally stable. By not determining this before admittance, the university jeopardizes other students.
2. The education system is at minimum culpable of stifling emotional development of a large number of their students. Emotional maturity is a hallmark trait that determines success in any educational environment.
Thankfully their is a cure. Stop coddling these young adults and tell them to grow up.
I want my tax money back!
Well, this is only going to get worse:
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
See the article on this almost non-event @ Salon. It seems to be a setup.
I wonder if these snowflake “professors” with their heads in the clouds consider the fact that I (and others) refer to their place as “Berserkley” a microaggression, or possibly something worse? How fragile do they have to be? Except when it comes to picking up the baseball bats and bicycle racks to throw through the windows on their campus.
On a related note, I’m surprised that the university didn’t schedule Free Speech Week to coincide with Spring Break Week.
Don Knotts is such an idiot.
Someone needs to tell Dumb Dave that this isn’t Twitter. Maybe he doesn’t have enough vocabulary to exceed 140 characters.
LOL!
Is anybody else tired of the prissy little brats without social upbringing trying to act like adults? They use sex, racism, foul language, destruction of others property, and dress like slobs telling the American tax payer what they want. Perhaps they need to be taught what the word NO means? Most do not need college or university life, they need jobs. TRADE SCHOOLS are needed desperately, there are very few qualified people that know a trade and can excel in it! A real American stands on their own two feet and does not have to be lead like a bull by the nose by professors, politicians, or influenced by low life Hollywood. Realize that all the toys (texting, video games, tv, music, ect.) are to distract you from what the corrupt want to do to America.